As a product manager I often ask for and estimate for a piece of work but it’s not so I can hold the engineer to their estimate. It’s often so I can understand

As a product manager I often ask for and estimate for a piece of work but it’s not so I can hold the engineer to their estimate. It’s often so I can understand capacity in the team and plan accordingly. I often just need to know; is this a week or two of work or a few days. Sometimes I might need an estimate if another team is dependent on the work being completed but i understand that most estimates are very rough and that I might likely need to go back to external teams and manage their expectations. I think the problem that OP highlights is not necessarily a problem with estimations it’s a problem with management holding engineers to account. This sounds like a company with poor culture. The solution to this is not to give estimates any more, the solution is to fix a toxic culture of management requiring accurate estimates and then holding engineers to account